


don't be a stranger

by spacehairdresser



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7965817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehairdresser/pseuds/spacehairdresser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>There was a part of Shinra that was aware he should be worried. A part mostly built of what he’d seen of other friendships when he was at Raijin, from watching good people like Kadota and Shizuo, people who were nothing like the two sitting across from each other in a Raira University dorm. Perhaps Kadota or Shizuo would worry when a person one of them occasionally counted as a friend was in over his head, but to think of it that way — Shinra wasn’t sure there was such a thing for Izaya. </p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	don't be a stranger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boychik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychik/gifts).



Orihara Izaya was not dead.

He was not dying, either, in spite of the several urgent voicemails on Shinra’s phone indicating otherwise. He was, instead, sitting backwards in his standard-issue dorm chair, shuffling a deck of cards and looking no less worse for the wear than the last time Shinra saw him. University generally seemed to treat him better than high school had, given that he was in much less frequent contact with his self-declared archenemy. He couldn’t see a single scratch on him. Unfortunate, how he seemed to evade karma.

“Well, this was a waste of time,” Shinra deadpanned from the doorway, medical bag slung now uselessly over one shoulder.

“Not at all,” Izaya said cheerfully. He gestured with a handful of cards to his bed, and Shinra took a somewhat reluctant seat on the worn mattress. “I got the chance to practice my acting, and now you can help me with…” He riffled the cards with a snap. “This.”

In recent years, Izaya had developed a flair for the theatrical, to Shinra’s frequent frustration. He slumped back, causing the bedsprings to squeal ominously. “Taking up magic?”

Eyes narrowing, Izaya started what was obviously a negative reply, and Shinra cut him off airily. “Maybe you should. Or try drama, if your acting needs work. Isn’t there a traditional arts club here? I could see you in kabuki—”

“Isn’t it sad you can only be persuaded to visit your friend if you think he’s on death’s door?” Izaya said, giving no indication he’d been listening to Shinra at all. What a waste.

“I wouldn’t say I’m the sad one.”

Once, Izaya would have scowled at that, or made an offhand threat to punch him. He simply smiled, though, a coolly unpleasant expression. He was harder to goad than he had been in their Raijin days, a general hardening probably an occupational hazard of whatever it was he considered his occupation.

“I can’t imagine you had anything better to do, in any case. There can’t be much demand for an underground doctor just out of high school.”

“Ah, but you would know better than I do that the criminal element in Ikebukuro—”

“ _Criminal element_?” Izaya laughed, sounding genuinely amused for once. “What do I know, that they’re so desperate they all flock to you?” An odd, self-satisfied expression passed his face, and he added, “If you have been busy, by the way, you can probably thank me. I’ve been making recommendations.”

He had been busy, in truth — barely enough time to spend with Celty. And her own work kept her out of the home at strange hours. What a heart-wrenching state of affairs, even without Izaya’s interference.

“You look gloomy,” said Izaya, who himself looked rather delighted by the fact. “Anyway, this is why I called you out here.” He riffled the deck again. “ _Svoyi Koziri_.”

“What?”

“S _voyi. Koziri._ ” His Russian didn’t sound terribly impressive to Shinra, but then, run fifty steps... “It’s not a terribly difficult game, but I need practice. Don’t worry, we’re not playing for anything.” That smile was twisting into something more like a sneer. “I know you disapprove of gambling.”

The scar on Shinra’s side twinged, and he laughed drily. “I appreciate your consideration. But why the sudden enthusiasm for card games?”

“There’s a woman in town I’ve been talking to — a Russian information broker, don’t ask what she’s doing in Ikebukuro. As far as I can tell, she’s mafiya, but it’s hard to dig up information when I’m still learning the language.” For the first time, Shinra noticed a stack of textbooks on the desk, the text running along the thick spines all in Cyrillic script. Typical, that they were the only effects in the room one would associate with a student. “We have a deal going, but first I have to beat her in a game of cards. A game of _Svoyi Koziri_ , to be precise. And thus…” He gestured expansively.

There was a part of Shinra that was aware he should be worried. A part mostly built of what he’d seen of other friendships when he was at Raijin, from watching good people like Kadota and Shizuo, people who were nothing like the two sitting across from each other in a Raira University dorm. Perhaps Kadota or Shizuo would worry when a person one of them occasionally counted as a friend was in over his head, but to think of it that way — Shinra wasn’t sure there was such a thing for Izaya. People got what they deserved, after all. Izaya would just outsmart his deserts for a little longer than most.

“What do you win, assuming, you know, you can? Information? That seems to me like a bit of a downgrade from your old ring.”

Izaya smirked. “You don’t mean that.”

“Nah, nah. You don’t really care about money, do you?" Warming to the subject, he elaborated, "It’s because you don’t have anyone to cherish, to provide for—”

“It’s because information is such easy money that you stop caring about one in favor of the other. That’s why I like this game, by the way.” He tapped the deck with a fingernail. “You know exactly what your opponent has in their hand. Do you want me to explain the rules, or would you like to keep insulting me?”

Well. “I can keep going,” Shinra offered. “But I suppose to keep this from being a complete waste of an afternoon, we can get started.”

Heaving a sigh, Izaya swung himself off his chair and settled cross-legged on the floor, patting the space in front of him. “I don’t have a proper table, so we’ll have to make do.”

Shinra shrugged off his coat, noting that the tiny fan perched on the desk wasn’t doing much to dispel the stuffiness of the room, and joined him. Plucking cards from the deck, Izaya's grin had returned. Shinra supposed he was just happy to be running the show again. Such petty ambitions, but predictable…

“We only play with nines and higher — aces high,” Izaya explained. “Each of us chooses two suits, and one as a trump. I’ll take clubs and spades, with clubs as the trump. You’ve got hearts and diamonds, so pick one of those.”

“The heart wins out over all,” Shinra said immediately. “A diamond may be forever, but the ephemerality of a heart is what gives it its power. And anyway, Celty said she’s not interested in diamonds, so—”

“Okay.” Izaya grimaced. “It’s so embarrassing to listen to you, you know that?”

Once he had narrowed down the deck, he split it in two and took one half, then set to discarding again. “I keep all the clubs and spades. King, jack, and ten of spades; ace, queen, and nine of clubs. Now you get the same in diamonds and hearts.”

Shinra shuffled through the cards until he’d pulled the right ones, then Izaya divided the cards to leave Shinra with the remaining cards of the black suits.

“The rest is easy,” he continued. “It’s just a game of one-upping each other. Once I play a card, you have to either top it with a higher card or with one of your trumps. If you don’t have one that can beat it, you have to take the pile. Winner gets rid of his hand first. It’s as simple as can be — except, of course, each of us knows what each of us is holding.”

Shinra frowned at his hand. “I wouldn’t think you’d like a game with no element of luck. Wouldn’t you prefer a little more chaos?” Izaya shrugged carelessly, and Shinra started again, realizing his mistake. “No, you only want that as long as _you_ know exactly what’s going on, right?”

“You’re not an analyst, _sensei_.” His voice curled teasingly around the title, but seemed to have become a bit hollow. “Maybe stick to your plants and your monsters.”

Before Shinra could think of a response, Izaya slapped down his first card, finally starting the game. Jack of spades, topped by queen of spades, topped by king of diamonds...

The quiet, less than a minute long, was interrupted by a sudden knocking at the door, startlingly sharp. Izaya groaned, but clambered to his feet to answer. Shinra couldn’t quite see who was on the other side of the door, which was pulled open just a crack — he wondered whether Izaya wanted to prevent him from seeing who was there, or stop the mysterious stranger from seeing him.

“I need to talk to you right now,” said stranger snapped. The voice was male, which Shinra supposed was slightly less intriguing than the alternative. He wasn’t sure, he realized, if his friend had kept up his trail of misguided female followers that he accumulated in high school, but there still had to be some around. A less monogamous man might have been envious, but it wasn’t as if he had any interest in human girls, in any case.

“You picked an interesting time to pay me a call,” Izaya said, opening the door the rest of the way to admit his visitor.

Shinra didn’t recognize the young man at first, just registered a skinny frame and shaggy hair that looked less fashionable than neglected, but there was a vague note of familiarity in the back of his mind. It was when the visitor balked, jerking back so suddenly that he almost stumbled into the doorframe, that Shinra recognized him and the dull fear in his eyes.

“Nakura-kun, it’s been a long time,” he said, not putting much effort into false cheeriness. There weren’t many people he could be bothered about one way or another, so it wasn’t as if he had _enemies_. But Nakura had almost taken him away from Celty, which put a bit of a dent in his usual friendly indifference.

“What’s this about?” Nakura demanded, eyes darting between the other two. “Did you know I was coming — did you set this up somehow?” That was directed at Izaya, whose smile had gone glacial.

“Set what up?” He sounded utterly bored, but Shinra was fairly certain his eyes were boring holes in the wall. Pity the plaster. “Do you think I care enough to plan this out?” His expression wrenched back into something more human, with effort. “This is just happy coincidence. All of us together again.”

“Pay me no mind,” Shinra added helpfully, which did not seem to settle Nakura at all.

“So why was it you needed to talk to me?” Izaya asked, returning to his chair. “You’re always interrupting us at inopportune moments.”

Glancing behind him, Nakura pulled the door shut, but kept a hand on the knob as though expecting to need to make an escape. “Some guys came by my dorm,” he started, voice hushed. “They threatened me — something about the As… Asuka—?”

“Asuki Group.”

He nodded, lips tightening. “They knew who my family was and everything. My kid brother — he’s at our junior high. And they said they were going to kill him.”

The Nakura that Shinra had known in junior high had tried to kill Izaya over a little money lost. Now, his eyes were dark with loathing and his hands were curled into fists, but his head was lowered in something like supplication and he made no move toward Izaya, who was slouched in his chair like an emperor approached by a petitioner.

He wasn’t sure, he realized, what to think of it all. For once, he lacked a proverb for the situation. Alas, failed by the wisdom of old!

“I’ll take care of it,” Izaya said, faintly amused. “I suppose I let a bit too much slip to one of my contacts and he figured out where I go to school. Shame they went so far out of their way just to threaten the wrong person.”

“I didn’t think you were using my name for things like _that_ ,” Nakura said. He was less angry at this point than despairing, and Shinra might have almost pitied him if he were anyone else. But oh, wasn’t this _interesting_.

“I can’t very well use my own, can I? That’s just a part of the deal we made. I told you I’d take care of it, so move along.” He made an impatient gesture toward the cards scattered on the floor, and after shooting one last impotent glare at the both of them, Nakura stormed out.

“So there is another human you hate,” Shinra said quietly, studying the scowl marring his friend’s face.

“No,” Izaya said, decisive. “He entertains me as much as anyone else. And I made a promise to make him suffer, so I’m keeping it.” He smiled then, a much more horrible expression than before. “Does he entertain you, too?”

There was a long hesitation before Shinra answered, more carefully than usual, “I’m not all that interested in revenge, you see.”

That annoyingly human part of him had gone and divided itself in two — _Perhaps you should reconsider friendship with a person who gets this much joy out of making other people miserable_ , said one side, while the other was obscurely, unpleasantly grateful. He could remember it well, after all, bleeding out on the classroom floor and half-convinced he was going to die. You carried that kind of thing with you, plus the nasty scar. So maybe — maybe he wasn’t particularly compelled to seek revenge, but there was such a thing as schadenfreude. That was something.

The kind of good person who would worry about his friend would not be the kind of person who would take satisfaction from seeing that friend digging himself into darkness to make up for some wrong from years ago. But since no one would know — Celty wouldn’t know — Shinra almost did. Take satisfaction, that is.

Not quite, though.

Maybe, he reflected, this would be the last time he’d make his way across the city to trade jibes with Izaya in an under-ventilated dorm room. It wasn't junior high anymore.

“Are we going to keep playing?”

“It’s not about the game,” Izaya answered, with sudden rough impatience. Tone smoothing, he added, “I thought you could tell that.”

Shinra let out a short, tired laugh. “I suppose so. But you like to finish what you’ve started, don’t you?”

“You always talk like you know what people are thinking, even when you say you don’t care about them at all.” He was back to being all snideness and slightly haughty amusement, even as he slid back to the floor, picking up his cards. “Let’s see if it helps you here at all.”

“Well, I hope you win. I’d say the stakes will be a fair bit higher on your side.”

Shinra’s eyes were on his cards, but he didn’t miss Izaya’s hint of a surprised smile.

**Author's Note:**

> "Run fifty steps..." — ごじっぽをもってひゃっぽをわらおう, "run fifty steps and laugh at one who runs a hundred." In other words, the pot calling the kettle black.
> 
> In volume nine, Nakura indicates to Kasane that he doesn't know who is visiting Izaya on campus, but I'm hand-waving that with the fairly plausible, imo, explanation that he's lying.


End file.
